2006-03-07
Bird Disease Hysteria
Big Gov is taking another dreadful lurch forward into causing needless problems: making all owners of commercial birds tag and register them, in the name of addressing Bird Flu Hysteria. This new US law will apply not only to the huge commercial chicken complexes, but also to the small farmer who gathers eggs each morning from chickens that have names and personalities. This article hasn't been posted on the internet yet; I have copied it from an email from Austin's beloved Boggey Creek Farm, and pasted it into the Comments section of this post.
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Greetings Citizens,
Aunt Penny, a fan of democracy (with herself in control of the
Hen House of course) has announced that if early efforts aren't enough
to stop this NAIS thing, she's ready to take the tractor to town and
cackle her way up Congress Avenue to rally her fans. Tootie, however,
having just produced the most magnificent egg in a little
thrown-together nest under Uncle Mac's antique wheelbarrow, interrupted,
squawking that SHE wants to drive the tractor. Auntie pecked her on the
head and said "You haven't even been ON the tractor, much less do you
possess the ability to drive it!"
It's a time-honored tradition for farmers and chickens to take
the farm vehicle to the seat of government to address a perceived wrong.
Sometimes, they even take their pitch forks! Auntie is sorely aggrieved
because The TX Animal Health Commission has decided that Auntie needs to
be identified and wear an ugly metal ankle bracelet, as if she were an
uncommon criminal, or worse. Furthermore, Auntie is not in favor of
being assigned a long series of numbers, instead of her name (Aunt Penny
Barrrock,) and she especially doesn't want to notify the government if
she decides to go to our other farm to visit the cousins there. Not that
she really likes those old red hens, but she'd like to keep her
un-notifying freedom to make the trip! What law has she broken anyway?
she burbles.
And since she has been on the tractor and in its bucket, she
figures she can straddle the steering wheel and aim it anywhere she
wants to. "How will you reach the foot pedal?" queries Tootie, who, with
her gold-rimmed round spectacles, looks indeed like a scholar who would
be in tune with the way human vehicles work. "OK," sighs Aunt Penny, "I
give up. You can stand on the gas pedal. But when I say 'goose it,' you
better hop up and down fast!"
If the hens could write, they would petition all the congress
people in the nation to try to stop this Animal Identification System,
or at least make it voluntary. Those poor creatures whose owners want it
can have it. But she's seen the tizzy her folks have been in, and she's
afraid that if it goes on too long, in our exhaustion, one night we'll
forget to let her, Tootie and Tita back into the Hen House for grain and
the nocturnal perch. They get nervous just thinking about having to
spend the night outside with the marauding raccoons and dogs. And
already, they have had to track me down twice at dusk to do my door
duty. I too may soon need an RFID chip.
Well, I tell her, as she turns her head sideways so that at
least one eye can look me in my high-up eyes, we've been busy farming
and talking to legislators and anyone, who will listen without becoming
comatose, about how NAIS is not going to "end disease;" its mandatory
implementation is going to raise TAXES and end local meat and eggs. (The
TAHC needs to raise tax money to insure its continued existence; it uses
fear of terrorism and disease to justify NAIS.)
There are already systems in place to track disease, and these
have worked so well that there virtually is NO serious disease amongst
animals in Texas. But if the disease-prone feedlot herds and the
concentration-camp chicken barns want additional tracking "to protect
the public," then great, they can sign up for the chips and the GPS
surveillance. After all, the bird flu is a problem in confined
mega-flocks in Asia, not in peasants' farm yards. The flu travels by
virus-laden air, and that certainly defines the air in those barns -- so
dangerous to breathe inside them that human workers must wear masks and
moon-walk clothes to gather the eggs and pick up the dead birds.
"Well," a defiant Aunt Penny cackles, "The enforcers aren't
going to be able to find all the little chicken flocks well-hidden all
across Texas, so there!"
"Aunt Penny," I reply patiently, "Haven't you heard the
neighborhood roosters crowing early in the morning?" "Of course I have,
and it's melodic to my fuzzy ears," she says. "That's how they'll find
them, Auntie. Imagine, they'll drive around until they hear the roosters
and then they'll zero in, point the chip-reading gun at them, see that
no data comes back, and consequently, they'll have to bust their owners
and force them to comply. Once they pay the fines, there'll be no money
for grain!"
Poor Auntie. The world seems so stacked against a little black
and white hen, who's just trying to find juicy worms and score enough
tofu to make a very nice egg for the farm stand customers. She's even
tolerant of them touching her ever so briefly as she glides away. For
she's a busy business-hen and doesn't have time for cuddling. But things
change. Some folks have to go down so that others (like chip
corporations and TAHC) can rise.
In Milam County, where our other farm is, an elderly ranch
widow asked Larry, "What am I going to do? I can't chip my fifty cows
and do all that computer data entry! I depend upon my animals to
supplement my Social Security, and now I'll have to sell them!" "Miss
Thelma," he replied, "You can't sell them. Then you'd lose your
agriculture tax status and have to pay five years of back taxes!" "Oh,"
she cried, "Then I'd lose my home and land!"
And that's the way it may go....Across Asia, the peasants are
being told that they must build confinement barns (which they can't
afford) for their chickens or have them exterminated -- all to protect
the profits of the corporate hen houses. And that's the way it goes. One
world; one food source.
* * * * * * * * *
* * * *
And for market Wednesday and Saturday, 9-2:
Hen House Eggs & Louis' Eggs (eat them now so you can tell your
grandchildren); A Few we-picked Strawberries (from the "winter" crop;
main crop U-pick mid April, we hope); Head Lettuces; Personal Cabbages;
Carrots; some Beets; Spring Garlic; Leeks; Green Onions; Turnips; Snow
Peas; English Peas; Chard; Dandelion Greens; Escarole; Endive;
Radicchio; Sweet Pea Bouquets; French Sorrel; Parsley; Chervil;
Cilantro; and maybe Mache and Parsnips....
And: Smoke-dried Tomatoes; Pure Luck's Goat Cheeses; Wateroak
Farms' Goat Cheese, Yogurt & Ice Cream; RainWater; White Mountain's
Tofu & Smoke-dried Tomato-infused Wheat Roast; Miles of Chocolate; Fresh
Bread from Sweetish Hill (Sat)....the farm books; Aunt Penny's organic
cotton Tote Bag -- and new organic Aunt Penny and Hen House T-shirts!
She and Tootie will wear the toddler size on the tractor!
* * * * * * * * *
* * * *
Please call your Legislative Representatives and write letters
to the Governor and ask them to promote voluntary status on the NAIS.
USDA did not mandate the plan to be compulsory; TAHC just wants it that
way. $$$$$ And please attend the March 23rd 8 AM TAHC meeting at
Marriott Hotel, Round Rock. More info: www.tofga.org and
www.texasanimalhealthcommissionwatch.com (read about bird flu.)
Carol Ann
-- Boggy Creek Farm
Larry Butler/Carol Ann Sayle
3414 Lyons Road
Austin TX 78702
www.boggycreekfarm.com
carolann@boggycreekfarm.com
The Farm Stand is Open Wednesday & Saturday 9-2
(c) Carol Ann Sayle
Quoting carolann@boggycreekfarm.com:
> Paul,
>
> Another thing, interestingly the only vote against giving TAHC the
> power to implement this program was cast by Senator Suzanna Huff (R).
> She raises appaloosa horses and actually read the bill!
>
> The representative who was the first to recant his yes vote -- after
> educating himself -- is Rep Bryan Hughes (R) from Marshall.
>
> This is an attack on the Constitution, not a partisan issue. Oh,
> it's a MONEY issue all right and that's what's so dangerous about
> it....
Darling: When are you going to post your marvelous article? I agree that the issue is not partisan, in that both the demos and repos for shame both believe that a big government program is the answer to every trouble, and that individual people are too stupid and powerless to solve their own problems. Then these Big Gov programs invariably interfere with the efforts of individuals to conduct their own affairs.
Permit me to modify my statement above: I don't blame "the repos" or "the demos". We Americans have adopted this beliefe in Big Government solutions to everything. I bet tha a poll would document a very strong majority of Americans favoring this program as an urgent neccessity to protect us all from Bird Flu.
I don't see there Money fits into this issue. Who benefits financially from all this rediculous chicken tagging? Perhaps Big Ag does, because its participants can afford to comply with this extra law, whereas its competators from local farms can't. But doesn't Big Ag tend to oppose any regulation? And are you guerrilla farmers really a big enough threat that they would catagorize all their poor, suffering chickens just to stick you weirdos in the eye?
I think that this dreadful legislations merely comes from do-gooding politicians who understand what Americans want, and are giving it to them.
Let's get your wonderful article posted so that at least some Americans can learn better.
Tom: You'd better go out and tag those laying hens after breakfast. That way you will be able to identify the culprit when one of them blows up the chicken coop during a suicide bombing mission.
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